Stories of the Shaifs
by Silver Shadows of the Night
Summary: Note: I did not write this, my friend Arabella MAjor  pen name  did. Claire Parker is just your average, everyday twelve-year-old girl. Until on day, she stops to pick up a rock. But not just any rock.
1. Chapter 1

**Stories of the Shaifs **

**Story 1:**

**Rock of Zambolia**

**By: Rithu Gurazada**

Chapter 1: Just like the C.I.A.

Why did it have to be me? I ask myself that question every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every-I think you've got the idea. As I was saying, I ask myself that question _all the time _since that fateful day of July 19th. Let's take you back to that morning.

One year ago on July 19th, I was heading home from a long, leisurely stroll. It may sound odd that a twelve year old girl would be roaming the streets of Los Angeles at 6:30 in the morning, but it helped clear my head. As I was turning the corner onto my street, I tripped. While picking myself up and dusting myself off, I made sure I wasn't bleeding and I wasn't. Yes, I know, I'm quite the multi-tasker. Looking down at what had caused my fall, I was embarrassed. It was a rock. It's not that I'm clumsy; I was focusing on the rosy pinks and light violets in the warm sunrise of L.A., not the comparatively ugly sidewalk ahead of me.

The size of the rock was relatively small, a lot like a mandarin, and the weight was about the same as a cloud. It was a deep hue of indigo, almost black. It was smooth and sleek and shiny, except for an uneven sort of (how do I put this?) bump, I guess. There was some sort of symbol on it. I'd never seen any rock like this before. The symbol was a silvery-black, slipping and sliding and hiding in the indigo of the stone. The symbol was emitting a warm glow. It felt like there was something in the rock. _Thump, thump, thump._ Louder, harder … harder, louder. Unable to resist, I pressed my thumb down on the sign. And that's when the world started spinning.

What was going on? The world rocketed around me as I lay paralyzed, kneeling with my head on my thighs, throbbing. Then it all stopped. I slowly lifted my head and opened my eyes. I was in a large room, quite like a college classroom, with rows of seating, each row a little higher than the last. There were bench like seats and in each space was a white laptop. It kind of looked like what I thought the C.I.A. would. Or the Apple store. All of the walls, seats, rows, everything was white. It was after that I noticed the people.

Screaming, I stumbled backwards and hit a large television screen that took up basically the whole wall. There was a person in every seat, all rapidly typing on their laptops, all whispering almost inaudibly into earpieces and headsets. The minute I screamed they all ceased whispering and stood up. Each was wearing a uniform of a white suit that blended into the room. Every woman wore her hair in a bun with a headband on and every man wore a white hat. They all wore comfortable looking leather shoes. Then they all burst into chatter, pointing at me and the rock which magically was still in my hand. Then the talking stopped. One girl who was apparently still sitting stood up. She sat in the center, but nobody sat next to her, the seating just continued around her, forming a wide circle. She raised her hand and everyone fell silent and sat down.

Everyone there obviously was older than her (she looking only around 14 or 15 years), but she seemed superior, seemed to be above them. Walking down a row of steps, she took her time, letting her stilettos _tip tap_ on the wood floors.

Once she downed all of the steps, her heels came to a stop in front of me, and with a warm smile she said,

"Welcome Claire Parker. We've been expecting you. Please follow me."

I did as I was told, me being submissive at times, the alpha at others. Right now I felt I should probably be submissive. We walked to the end of the room. I wondered how we would get out, because there was no door.

The girl put her hand up a few inches away from the wall. It looked like she was touching an invisible barrier. At first I thought she was miming, and then scolded myself for being so foolish. No CI.A. agent I knew mimed on the job. Actually, I didn't know any C.I.A. agents. For all I knew, miming could be the newest trend of the C.I.A. After my miming obsession, I wondered how she knew my name. A C.I.A. operative would know my name.

The portion of air she touched rippled, and a door-sized hole appeared in the wall. She stepped through and beckoned me to follow. Again, submissive. We walked into a hallway that had one door to the right and one at the very end. The girl led me to the one at the end. From the inside of her suit, she took out a laser pointer and aimed at the door. You see there were no knobs on the doors; just small black circles in the center of the very white (surprise!) doors.

Suddenly I was angry with the people of the C.I.A., or whoever these people were. The white looked sad, lifeless; it looked like a once beautiful, dazzling shade that was stripped naked of its clothes, and had turned into this. A mixture of emotions led to a churning red sea boiling up inside me, holding fish filled of fury and sharks made of animosity. Then the sea dried up, the fish dead because of a lack of water. I nearly slapped myself for getting so angry over a color. It wasn't like me. Not at all.

The girl pointed the laser pointer at the small black circle. Startling me, the door slid up into the wall. The room inside was light blue, one of my favorite colors, something that made the sea dry up completely. The setting of the room was that of a normal office. The girl walked to a desk and sat down, pointing at what looked like two bean bags on the other side of the desk. Sitting down, I realized it felt like a beanbag but didn't sag under your weight, so you were at the same height as the person on the other side. Somehow it liberated me, made me feel like I was equal to the person on the other side, in this case the girl. I hated how I couldn't call her anything but the girl. I hated not knowing anything. Wait, I told myself, this is too much anger in the same hour. I was usually never this angry in a whole day. This place was doing something to me.

I just then took in the girl. She was beautiful, with dark curls and sharp green eyes. She wore the uniform of everyone else, yet she was their boss?

Then, breaking the silence, she spoke, "So I'm sure you have plenty of questions for me and I'm here to answer all of them. But first I'd like to introduce myself. I'm Aria Mason. Now ask away," she said. Now I didn't have to call her 'she'. I could call her Aria.

"How did I get here? And where is here?" I interrogated.

"Here is London," Aria replied. "And Estania brought you here because she felt you are worthy." Then seeing my confused face, she said, "Let me tell you a story. There is an island called Zambolia, high above the heavens. About four or five centuries ago, a new king took over Zambolia. His name was Imai. He was known worldwide for being magically special. He married the woman he loved, a woman named Estania. They had three great children. All of their subjects loved them. Their life was a dream. Imai's brother, Yafan, was ruler of Harteca, the underworld. He was jealous of Imai, wanted Imai's throne. So he kidnapped Estania and said he would only return her if he could talk to Imai. It was a planned attack. Right before Yafan was about to stab Imai, Estania took the knife. She was weak and was about to die. So Imai used his powers to turn her into the only thing he could find. A rock. She is that rock you hold, Claire. That symbol is Zambolia's sign. We all wear it." She pointed to a pin hanging from the upper right hand pocket of her suit. It was the symbol on the rock.

"So this rock is a person? It can obviously transport people right?" I asked. She nodded, and I went on. "And even though I don't believe in magic, this is interesting so I might as well. First of all, what is this place, what am I worthy of, and how did you make a hole in the wall with your hand?" I questioned.

"Oh yes, welcome to SOZ Headquarters and -" she began.

"What is SOZ?" I interrupted.

"SOZ- Shaifs of Zambolia. In Zambolian, shaif means helper or protector. We are shaifs,"Aria explained. She continued. "We all have special powers. Shaifs are grouped based on their powers. They are grouped into three categories called Families; the Speakers, the Shifters, and the Minds. Speakers can talk to anything; plants, animals, inanimate objects. Shifters shape-shift into whatever they want to. Minds do things with their brains, like sending mental thoughts, or reading people's minds. There is one other Family. They are called the Mallanas. They have the powers of the Speakers, Shifters and Minds, plus some additional Mallana powers such as super speed, super strength, and invisibility, just to name a few. You are worthy of being a shaif. But Estania's heart was beating. I have never seen her as excited as she is today. And that means you might be a Mallana."

It took me a little while to understand what she was saying. It didn't make sense. How could I be magical? The most magic I had done was when I was 6 and my mom got me a Be a Magician! kit.

"What do you mean? I'm not magical or special. And if I don't even know how does she?" I asked, holding up the rock.

"You may not be able to feel it, but she can. We're going to train you and teach you how to control your powers," Aria answered.

"Are you the director of SOZ? And when you said 'We're going to train your powers' does that mean I'm going to stay here forever? Are you a Mallana? If shaifs protect Zambolia what do you protect it from?" I bombarded, not leaving anything out.

"I am the director, quite an achievement at 15, you will only stay here if you want to, and I am a Mallana. We protect Zambolia from any kind of evil. And can you call me Aria, please?" she said.

"Sure. Aria, if I don't want to do this I don't have to?" I asked her doubtfully.

"No, Claire. If you don't want to do this you don't have to. I want you to know that while this is interesting, it is very serious. If you say yes you will have to sacrifice seeing your friends or family ever again, for their safety as well as yours.

But don't rush the decision. That will only be worse,"she added at the end, realizing how dramatic that sounded.

I was uneasy. This was crazy. I just met this person, got transported hundreds of miles away from my home by a rock, and stepped into (actually more like fell into) a whole new world. And I wouldn't be able to see my parents ever again. Or my sister. On second thought, I could live without seeing my sister. I had a nagging feeling in my heart, like I did before I pressed the rock. Like I couldn't resist. And that feeling got the best of me.

I took a deep breath and said, "Yes. I will become a shaif." Aria beamed with joy. "I am so glad! Now are you hungry? I am positively starving."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Family Jewels

Funny how much your life can change in an hour. That sounds like something the Geico Gecko would say. (Fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance!) After a wonderful lunch of grilled cheese and tomato soup, Aria took me on a tour of SOZ.

"So, that is the Research Room," Aria said, pointing to the room where I so gracefully landed. There was no black circle, just the end of a hallway. "There is a force field on the inside and out to prevent the leakage of any information. That is also why there is no door. But if you put your hand up to it, it should respond. All four Families have a certain period of time spent every day in the Research Room. The schedule for all training sessions changes every two weeks. You will attend all sessions with your Family."

She walked to the door on the only other door in the hallway. Before she pointed her laser she stopped and said, "Only the staff gets the lasers. Trainees like you get their eyes scanned. We already have your information in our database so give it a shot."

As I stepped closer to the door, I wondered if the laser would burn my eye. Or if it would blind me. Or if by the end of this year I would only have one eye. I leaned forward and aligned my right eye with the circle, then switched to my left. If I was going to lose an eye, might as well be my left. Suddenly a thick blue beam of light shot out from the circle. Flinching, I then realized there was no pain. There was no feeling. The light scanned my eye up and down, left and right. Then the beam went back into the black circle and the door slid up into the wall.

We stepped into a huge circular room with nine doors. All of the doors were open, and kids everywhere from seven to seventeen were bustling and chatting, all wearing the uniform and carrying a white laptop. Some of them were sitting on benches pushed against the wall or talking to friends.

After that, I noticed that the uniform the trainees were wearing were the only thing that was white in the room. The walls were a light gray-green shade.

"We wear white and make everything else white because it is a very peaceful color. Sometimes when we are having a burst of emotions, our powers are released and they create havoc. But when we see white we are calm," Aria told me. "But we were getting complaints about the white so we have allowed light shades. We found they are soothing as well, not as much as white, but still, soothing. Each Family has their own color. We wear a ring with a gem that is the same color as our Family. But Mallanas wear a charm bracelet with all of the gems to symbolize all of the powers. The Speakers' color is red, the Shifters' is green, the Minds' is purple and the Mallanas' is blue."

Aria showed me her charm bracelet. It had a ruby, emerald, amethyst and a sapphire. "Mallana guys wear something kind of like a dog tag necklace, except instead of dog tags there are the gems. They kept complaining bracelets were too girly."

She tugged down her sleeve and then pointed to the doors. Above each door was the name of the place past the door, labeled in black.

"When there are so many trainees going from room to room, we just leave the doors open. As you can see, that is the Gymnasium, Café, Dormitories, Auditorium, Pets Barn, Garden, Nurse's Office, Training Rooms and the Extra Curricular. We added the Extra Curricular Room because trainees find it soothing after a long day of training, especially the endurance tests we have every six months. In that room you will find drama/theatre, singing lessons, instrument lessons, dance, tutoring done by trainees twelve and above. We only start training at eight years so the ones younger than eight would learn basically things they would learn in a normal school. We have a wide assortment, if that is what you want to call it, of animals in the Pets Barn and a Garden for plant-lovers and it is the source of our vegetables. We get all of our dairy and eggs from our animals. We don't serve meat because it tilts our magical balance. You will realize it won't be that big of a loss."

She stopped for a second to catch her breath, which had been thrown all over the place because of her nonstop talking for about five minutes straight.

"Now that you've seen everything, it's time to find out what Family you belong in. Back to my office."

We stepped back through the door we came from. As we walked towards Aria's office.

"The way office, the butterflies in my stomach popped out of their cocoons and started fluttering around, carrying anxiety and nervousness on their wings. What if my Family didn't like me? What if they are mean to me? It was just like the first day of school all over again. We entered the room and I fell on to the beanbag, a little afraid now. Why was I so scared? Aria took out a pen and a piece of paper and laid them in front of me.

"The way works is that you will hold Estania," she said pointing to the rock. "She will tell you write something and based on that, I will be able to tell what Family you are in. So pick up Estania, take a deep breath, and just listen," Aria told me, and once again I was extremely confused. But I couldn't do anything about it so I followed my orders. Submissive. I cleared the fog of confusion that had formed in my head and waited.

Then a voice started channeling through my head. It was a soft, gentle, accented woman's voice. At first it sounded like gibberish, but then, slowly, I could understand the words that made no sense.

"_Hello Claire Parker. I am Estania. I need you to do something. Will you?" _the woman said.

As I opened my mouth to respond, Estania added, _"Claire, darling, I can hear your thoughts."_

As I thought about the word yes, I also figured that plenty of people in the past have embarrassed themselves, talking out loud to what seemingly was only a rock.

"_Yes they have, Claire. You wouldn't believe how many people think that just because I am a rock that I cannot hear their thoughts when they can hear mine."_

Guilt flooded me as I realized what I had said, or rather, thought. I didn't mean to imply that it was bad that she was a rock, though, when I look back on it, it wasn't a very good scenario for her to be in. Immediately Estania spoke in my head again.

"_No, no, dear. Don't feel bad. I am quite all right with my current state. In fact, I am grateful that my dear Imai cared enough," she said, her voice cracking, "to save me from the brink of death."_

Then, snuffling back tears, she said, _"Anyway, we are not here to discuss my near death. I need you to clear your mind for a quick second. Ready?"_

After around thirty seconds of complete silence, Estania finally spoke again.

"_Well you were fantastic. Great focus. Now I need you to write something down for me. I-M-A-F-A-A-N."_

She waited for a second as my (submissive) fingers took the pen and wrote the strange word down.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Dress-up and Purple Bear Hugs

After we made our long and very tiring way back to the other side of the court, we found ourselves in an empty Main Room with Beth furiously calculating which rooms she could afford to show me with only about one and a half hours left until dinner.

"Okay. I have come to a decision. I have to show you the Dorms, and that will be last. We can't go into the Nurses Office unless we are sick or hurt and I don't think it's worth me punching you. You're going to see the Training Rooms tomorrow and the Café in a little bit. You have come just in time-we are changing schedules tomorrow and I'm going to sign up for some ECs (Extra Curricular). You should come and sign up for some. Well sign up after Garpal. Anyway, that leaves the Auditorium, the Pets Barn and the Garden. Let's start with the Auditorium," she said and she was off like a bullet.

The Auditorium was a vast, breathtaking room that made me want to stay forever. Amazingly, it wasn't white. On the contrary, it had coal black plush carpet that was on the floors as well as the walls, but it felt warm, not cheesy. The stage was smooth dark mahogany and the curtains were a deep maroon silk and, when closed, the curtains crinkled in just the right places. The seats were movie-theatre style, but with soft cushioning on the bottom like you were sitting on a couch at home.

It reminded me of the theatre I used to go to with my mom to watch musicals. I could feel Beth staring at me so I stopped thinking about home.

"Wonderful, isn't it? You know they renovate the entire Headquarters every twenty years but they haven't touched this room since 1971?" Beth told me, unhidden admiration in her voice. She went on, probably because she knew I wasn't going to say anything. "They have plays in here for drama in EC. The costumes are made by the wardrobe students in EC and they are beautiful. And the actors are brilliant and they make it feel so, so….."

"Real?" I answered.

"Yes. Um, Claire? You have one of those homesick expressions on, would you like to see the Garden now?" Beth said, clearly concerned. I nodded gratefully, thankful for someone who understood what I was saying without saying it.

We walked out of the Auditorium and made our way to the Garden. Immediately a burst of full freshness slapped me, as if it were a five-hundred pound sumo wrestler.

There were about ten to fifteen people in the Garden. The room had dirt floors and blades of sour-apple green grass growing along the edges of the walls. Or was that paint? The funny thing was that the people weren't wearing their uniforms. They were wearing a sort of smock/overall and floppy hat.

"Why aren't they wearing their uniforms?" I asked Beth.

"I'll explain at the Dorms," Beth said vaguely.

We took a moment to look around the Garden. There were planters dotted all over the place, about the size of sandboxes. These planters were bursting with full, round tomatoes, plump grapes and long, bright green beans, among many other fruits and veggies, some of which I, to this date, do not know the names of. At the side of each planter was a large bucket filled with all kinds of gardening tools. Some of the longer tools were propped up on the dirt-stained white walls. Next to the door was a large bucket filled with miss-matching gloves. There were also a couple trees in the back with apples, cherries, peaches, and I think a banana tree.

"Hey, Claire. We've got about one hour and twenty minutes left. We better go to the Pets Barn. Judging by the yellow hairs on your clothes, we are going to be there for a little bit." Beth broke the silence with an iron hammer; at the same time she reminded me of Hero, my dog, and how I already missed her. Hero, home, it's all the same. It all hurts in the end.

The Pets Barn looked like a farm combined with a zoo. The entire room was designed like the inside of a barn, or at least what the ones in the movies look like, hence Pets _Barn_. At the very end were three horse stalls, all occupied with calm, quiet horses. The whole floor was grass covered with hay. In the center was a pond with four ducks and eight adorable ducklings swimming around. Inside were a gray Welsh, a white Palomino and a chestnut Shetland. All of the stalls had a red board attached to the door with the horse's names on it; the Welsh was Storm, the Palomino's name was Snow White, the Shetland's was Sandy.

We then walked over to the large chicken coop. Even though there were one or two noisy chickens, Beth paid them no heed.

"Here are our wonderful chickens. Thirty male, thirty female and twenty adorable baby chicks," Beth informed me. We walked to the right and Beth showed me a space half the size of the chicken coop, filled with four ducks and eight ducklings. "We have eight ducks and sixteen ducklings. The rest of them are in the pond over there." Beth pointed to the pond hurriedly, glancing at her watch every few minutes.

And then I saw her.

It was a dog pen. Inside were a middle-aged Golden Retriever and an equally middle-aged Australian Shepard, lying on a bed together while six puppies zoomed around, playing and barking cheerfully. The ground was littered with toys and more soft hay. There were eight beds lined against the wall and eight sets of food and water bowls against the next wall. But the Golden Retriever was drew my attention. She looked exactly like Hero. The puppies reminded me of Hero too, even with the bit of black on their tails form the Australian Shepard, just like hers. But it couldn't possibly-well we rescued Hero, we didn't know who her parents were. But I was in London. And I live- I mean lived in Los Angeles. It couldn't be. But I watched Homeward Bound Golden Retrievers, and I guessed anything could be possible.

"I see you've noticed the dogs. They are some of the sweetest you will ever meet. I have-I had a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. His name is Prince. I doubt my parents would have kicked him out after I left. He was the closest thing to me. He was part of the family, and he still should be. Got him five years ago, he was just three weeks old. Miss him a lot," Beth said, choking up.

"You know, I had a Golden Retriever. Had her since I was six. She was just two months old when we got her. She's seven, but so fit she could pass for a two year old. She looks like that Golden over there," I said, choking up myself. Beth cleared her throat.

"Oh, her name's Orrie. Well actually it's Orradias, which means peace in Zambolian, but everyone calls her Orrie. Some people call her Mrs. Bow." Then, sighting my confused face, she explained saying, "The Australian Shepard and Orrie are married, and I've got papers to prove it. His name is Rain. All of the little kids began calling him Rainbow. So his first name is Rain and his last name is Bow. Mr. Rain Bow and Mrs. Orrie Bow." Then pointing to the puppies she said, "That is Mary and her sister Sarah, that's Lightning, Rain Jr., Panther (she acts more like a cat than a dog) and Emmerani, which means time in Zambolian."

For the next twenty minutes we met ten cows, three calves, two goats, two sheep, four lambs, five mice, a snake and three turtles (not all next to each other). By the door was a supply closet filled with animal food, extra toys, water and other things.

"Look we've got only forty-five minutes left until dinner. Do you want to see the Dorms?" Beth said. I smiled.

"Lead the way!"

We walked to the center of the Main Room, in front of the door labeled Dormitories. This time Beth let me open the door. We stepped into another big, circular room with five doors. The room was a very light color. It was almost white, but it wasn't. even though it was white, it was warm and comforting, like your mom giving you a hug after a rough day. And today was definitely a rough day. The color was indescribable, yet its name was lying on the tip of my tongue. But it shouldn't have been. Then Beth started talking. And I knew the words she was going to say before they escaped from her mouth.

"The color is beautiful, isn't it? It's called-"

"Tarseel," I interrupted. "It's a paint made from the national fruit of Zambolia, a berry called Maaci. The previous director wanted the whole building painted Tarseel, but Maaci was very rare so the director made only this room Tarseel. Maaci is poisonous and endangered."

I couldn't believe what I had just done or where it had come from. I expected Beth to be angry with me, because most people don't like being interrupted. But Beth's smile just increased.

"Your powers are kicking in! it is a bit early, as most new people only get their powers a week after coming here, but no complaints. And your Mind powers are incredibly strong."

Was that a good thing? I wondered. Am I not normal? Well, considering I was just transported hundreds of miles from home by a rock and then heard it speak and just read somebody's mind, I guess to the uninformed eye I was, and still am, pretty abnormal.

"Yes, it is a good thing your powers came so early. The sooner the better. And don't be sorry about it. It was bound to happen sometime," Beth said. I looked at her, puzzled, wondering how she knew what I was thinking.

"You didn't think I would let you have all the fun, did you?" she grinned mischievously. "Now, come on. There is a lot to see in the Mallana Dorms," she said, pulling me toward what I guessed was the Mallana door. All of the doors were painted a light color, which I soon recognized to be the Families' colors. Besides the other doors for the Shifters, Speakers and Minds doors was another, this one white. It was farther away from the rest. It was the first white hair in a sea of black locks, when someone is aging.

"What is that door for?" I asked Beth.

"Oh, that one? It's the staff's quarters. The cooks, cleaners, trainers and EC teachers, sports coaches, Madam Mason-I mean Aria and everyone else. So-"

"Who is Madam Mason? You keep on switching. Madam Mason- Aria. Aria-Madam Mason. Who is she?" I questioned, interrupting for the second time in the same five minutes.

Beth took to pretending that she just now was fascinated by the toe of her boot. It went on for a minute or two and during that minute or two I pretended that I was okay with her boot-fascination. When I felt like I couldn't take it anymore and I was going to scream, Beth finally spoke up.

"Since the beginning of SOZ, every director has been a woman. Each director was from the same family. The Mason family. All previous directors always have a baby girl even if they have a boy as well. All daughters are supposed to take SOZ over at age twenty-five. But with Aria, it was different." When she said this, she sounded on the verge of tears. "Aria's mum, Maria, was kind and generous and a wonderful director, the best. One year ago when Maria - Madam Mason, as everyone was supposed to call the director - was taking her usual walk around the building, someone came into the Garden. He broke through our walls with a tilook, a hammer of sorts, filled with dark magic. He aimed his bow and arrow at the only living thing in the room; a girl of eleven years, planting petunias. There is an alarm that goes off when someone breaks in, only to be heard by the people of SOZ, not the intruder. Madam Mason used her ability to flawlessly move through solid objects and walked through the Garden wall. She yelled at him, but not in English. Then he jumped out of the hole he made. But," Beth trembled, "before he did he dropped a miniscule bomb that killed Madam Mason. The girl had taken those buckets you saw and created a fort like shield, but even without it the bomb wouldn't have touched her. How do I know this? I was the girl. Madam Mason died saving my life.

The moment of silence that followed was filled with sorrow and shock. Beth's eyes released small beads of water that fell down her slightly pale, crimson cheeks in a single file line. It took Beth a moment to brush away her tears and clear her throat and try to go back to the time before I asked her about Maria. Before I made her cry.

"Um, well then. Let's go inside." She stepped toward the door and I was submissive (as usual).

We entered a room beyond my wildest dreams of entertainment. The walls were light blue, the furniture pure white. Flat screen T.V.s wider than I could reach my arms out hung on the walls, surrounding the whole room. There were around thirty in total. All kinds of electronic game systems were set up, like Play Station, Xbox 360 and Wii. The beanbag like chairs in Aria's office dotted the floor, and only a few were empty. In the right corner was a cozy reading nook with about ten beanbags. Exactly across from the entryway were two elevators. They were labeled B and G.

"Earth to Claire!" Beth tugged at my arm. "I've been talking to you for the past five minutes and you wouldn't respond! It's alright, everyone's dazzled at first. This is the Rec Room. As a proper host I am supposed to show you everything. Do you see that door over there?" She pointed to a small black dot in the middle of the right-hand wall. The door was blue not white, blending in to the room.

"That is our Material World. It is a shop where you can get things anywhere from clothes to pencils to Zambolian cookies. Every Dorm has them. But before that, we have to show you your bed and stuff," she said and we walked over to the elevator labeled G. There were six buttons inside the elevator labeled G-L1 (0-2), G-L2 (3-7), G-L3 (8-11), G-L4 (12-15) and G-L5 (16-21).

"This is the elevator to the girls' dorms. G-L stands for Girls-Level and the numbers in parentheses are the ages that stay in that level. We go to G-L4. And you can only visit people in other levels during Free Time. I'll explain later. Here we are!" Beth exclaimed.

We walked into another large circular room, this one with about twenty beds and filled with talking girls. On the left was a white bulletin board that matched the walls. The beds had blue sheets and the big, fluffy, down comforter had a large bold M on it. To the right was a door labeled Bathroom. We walked over to the bulletin board. Beth pointed to a blue sheet of paper that was pinned up by two white thumbtacks.

"This is our new schedule. If you remember, we're changing schedules tomorrow and the new schedule is sent the day before, in this case today. First we have breakfast at 8:15. Then we have training from 9:05 and then pause for lunch at 12:20. We then resume training at 1:10 until 3:25, and from 3:30 to 4:45 we are in the Research Room. 4:50 to 6:30 is Free Time, where some people do ECs or just relax. 6:45, as I have made it quite evident, is dinner. By 9:30 you have to be in your dorm. At 10:00 you have to be in bed. Most people do their ECs in between 6:45 and 9:30 because there is more time. And over there are the powder roo-"

She never finished the sentence, for at that moment two girls ran toward her and enveloped her in an enormously large bear hug.

"Pais! Jess! You're crushing my lungs!" Beth croaked. They let go and started squashing my lungs. They both had the same wavy, coffee brown hair, the same purple eyes, yes purple, and the same everything. They were twins. They both immediately started apologizing to me at the same time.

"I'm sorry!"

"We're sorry!"

"We didn't know and-"

"We didn't mean to!"

"We thought you were her and we-"

"So worried about her!"

This time Beth interrupted. "Claire, allow me to introduce you to Paisley and Jessi Neva."

"Hi, I'm Claire Parker," I said as I shook their hands.

"Paisley," the one on the left said.

"Jessi," the one on the right said.

"I'm sorry, I know we just met, rather enthusiastically, but are those contacts?" I asked.

"Our eyes? Believe it or not, no, we were born with purple eyes," Paisley (at least I _think_ it was her) replied.

"Claire's new here and Aria asked me to show her around. That's where I was for the past," she checked her watch, "one hour. Sorry."

"Do you know how worried we've been? One second you're talking about fish and chips and then _poof_; you've vanished!" Jessie complained, sounding a little too much like my mother.

"Relax, I would never get in trouble," she said, batting her eyes with mock-innocence.

"We've got to show you your bed!" Paisley said. We walked over to the bed the girls were sitting on.

"This is my bed and this is Jessi's," Paisley said, pointing to two beds on the left. "This is Beth's and that is yours." She pointed to a bed in between Beth's and Jessi's beds.

"We heard there was a new girl coming and we wanted to make her comfortable. Alexia Cruz used to sleep here but she turned sixteen and she became our Mom. Since we are Families, the president of the group is called the Mom or, if it is a guy, the Dad. POTS stands for Parents of the Shaifs. They are a society who meet once a month, along with the director, to decide what is best for us, or any suggestions we have that can improve us as a community. Over the years it's become POTS and Pans, get it? I want to run for Mom one day," Jessi said, admiration in her voice as it trailed off to the sky, as she turned her head far off to the distance, like people always did in the movies. Then she cleared her throat and pointed out, looking at a girl on the other side of the dorm laughing with another group of girls, maybe saying good-bye. "There is Alexia now." All I could see was her dirty blonde hair, a little like mine except with more brown, like my sister's, and her tanned skin and her perfect, crystal teeth that were revealed when she smiled and started walking toward us.

"Hi! You must be the new trainee!" she said, shaking my hand warmly. "I'm Alexia."

"Hi, I'm Claire," I replied, trying to do my own, perfect smile, but felt only my gums were on display, so I tried flashing one of those closed mouth ones, the ones my sister said weren't real smiles. I tried to imagine never seeing her again. She was only a junior in high school and everyone told me I'd miss her more than ever when she got to college. I tried to think of the bright side, that now I didn't have to go through the day where she would leave and we both would cry buckets and bathtubs full and hug, and then at the ivy-league college that she graced with her straight-A's, she would try to get me to let go, because it would make her look like a baby, but we would both know she'd give up anything in the world to be there in the shelter of our Camry, letting the tears fall, not caring anymore. Then I thought about how it was cut short now, and how I was deprived of the last year with her, deprived of a year full of her teases and taunts, also being deprived of the way she would wrap her arms around me when I moved in for a hug and she had finally stopped cringing when I hugged her; she finally said goodbye to me with meaning in her voice when I went somewhere, she finally showed that she loved me more than the normal amount of love that was spread through normal siblings. A lump formed in my heart with sorrow. Right now both sides seemed just a tad gloomy.

"You won't see me around much because I just turned sixteen," Alexia said with warm eyes that somehow made me forget about my sister for that second and brought me back to the present time. "But I just became Mom," she added with a dash of pride in her voice, "so you might. Or not. Um, I'm so sorry, but I have my first POTS and Pans meeting in five minutes and it will not look good if I am late," she said, promptly pushing us forward and signaling our goodbyes'. Classy, I thought.

"No, problem. It was great meeting you, and good luck, I guess," I said.

"Thank you! See you around!" she said behind her back, for she was already out the door.

"She's really nice. Everyone here is." I was amazed. So far I hadn't met one snobby girl obsessed about her hair or one loud, obnoxious boy obsessed with being….a boy.

"For the most part," Jessi agreed. "But you definitely want to stay away from Sydney Sutton."

"And her boyfriend Todd Jerkins," Paisley added.

"Don't forget Grace Tucker," Beth warned.

"And Zoe Martin."

"And Nathan Russ!"

"And Bees T."

"Who is 'beasty'?" And why did his mother hate him so much? I wanted to add, but figured it would be too much.

"His name is Evan T. Bees," Paisley sighed, as if she couldn't believe she was wasting her breath on saying his name. "But he acts like he's half monster, actually full monster, so we put the T after the Bees, where it belongs."

"You see, some people think that since we have all the powers we think we're better than everybody else. But that is definitely not true, if anything it is the opposite. Sydney and all are just a lot of bored, stupid fifteen year olds, who need to learn how to get a life," Beth explained.

"So, moving on!" Jessi said. "We have to quickly show you the Material World because we've got only thirty-five minutes left and we have to show you your closet as well. Let's go to the Material World first."

We took the elevator down to the Rec Room. During our ride, the girls explained to me that we had to wear our suits through all of our training and to all meals. We could wear normal clothes during Free Time and when we went to bed. That's why the Gardeners were dressed normally. I also asked why the women in the Research Room wore their hair in a bun, but girls here didn't, while men in the Research Room and boys here wore white hats.

"The people you saw in the Research Room were probably the staff. Only staff women have to wear their hair in bus. But we trainee ladies," Paisley bragged, flipping her own long brown locks, "get to do whatever we want with it. One girl even shaved it all off last year. She was trying to pull a Britney Spears, but it didn't work for her. For that matter, it didn't work for Britney Spears either," she added, making us all laugh.

"Unfortunately, for them, both staff and trainee boys have to wear hats. But they can pick from a wide selection. They can even wear their baseball hats backwards!" Jessi said proudly. "Though it looks out of place with a suit."

"We're here!" Beth said just as the elevator doors dinged open.

The Rec Room was not as crowded, maybe because there was about half an hour left until dinner. I couldn't understand the rush. We were just eating. But that of course, was an understatement. There were a lot of mysteries in this place, something that made me wonder if this was all a good thing. But then I shooed the thought out of my head and chided myself, for there could be nothing bad about this place. Could there?

I entered the Material World, impressed and a little excited. It looked like a variety of clothing stores mixed with a shoe store mixed with a little bit of a grocery store mixed with an accessories store mixed with an Office Depot. Needless to say, you could get everything there.

The vast room was filled with goodies and Zambolian delicacies as well as designer clothes and shoes and also normal things you would use every day if you didn't have magical powers. Like mosquitoes, girls swarmed around the area, trying on sunglasses that were too big for them and huge, glittery necklaces and rings that looked like they belonged to the Kardashian family. But after digesting that, my eye caught a meal of an ocean of white hats by the electronics. Typical.

"We should have taken you to your closet first so that you could have gotten your allowance," Beth realized regretfully. The twins nodded.

"We get allowance here?" I perked up instantly. Oh, come on. I'm just a girl. Of course I care about money. I'm just a twelve year old girl with unapparent supernatural powers, but hey, that doesn't change anything.

Beth nodded. "We get fifteen arkelles a week." She fumbled around in her jacket and took out a couple of odd coins. The Zambolian currency consisted of blindingly shiny silver coins, with some writing on it and the Sign. They were pretty light in my hand, but warm and, strangely soft. Beth protectively snatched them away from me before I became too attached.

"These are our only kind of money. Most of the items in the Material World are from ten to fifteen arkelles. We can take you shopping after Garpal, if you would like," Beth suggested. There was that word 'Garpal' again. It was in the Gym too. Mysterious. "Let's show you your closet now." Beth led the way to the dorms.

With only twenty minutes left, we entered an empty dorm. There wasn't a girl in sight. How could they have just disappeared? Beth, Paisley and Jessi walked to our beds. Something on the floor begged for my attention and I granted its wish. It was a small white button with a picture of a blue coat hanger on it.

"Go on. Tap it. With your foot," Beth said, nudging me, looking at the button. I walked over and gently pressed the sole of my purple flip-flops to the button. As rubbery flip-flop met dark wood floor, the ground fell. Literally. We were descending slowly. After a couple of seconds and a puff of foggy air, we stopped in a room. The smoke hadn't cleared yet, but some things were visible. I couldn't tell, but some shelves were coming into view. And what looked like racks. I felt warm plush carpet wiggle between my toes.

When the smoke cleared up, I could see we were in a room a little bigger than my mom's walk-in closet. What I saw definitely fit the title.

"Believe me; the smoke doesn't get any more helpful in the morning when you're late and in a rush," Paisley said. In front of me was a long rack of white suits, about ten in all. To the left was another, shorter rack full of cashmere sweaters, designer jeans, chiffon dresses. To the right was a short rack full of light summer sweaters and thick winter raincoats, next to cubby like shelves stocked with normal, everyday T-shirts, jeans, shorts. At the bottom were small cherry cupboards that Jessi tugged open, revealing shoes. High-heels, wedges, ballet flats, sandals, moccasins, Toms, tennis shoes, furry slippers; you name it, they had it. Paisley pulled out a drawer with diamond studs, sapphires, rings, gold necklaces, silver bracelets, as well as headbands and clips and other numerous accessories. Resting on a small granite counter separating higher shelving and shoe cupboards was a smooth white box. I touched it and from nowhere a lid sprang open, showing fifteen twinkling arkelles.

"This….this is my closet?" I whispered in awe, unable to fully wrap my head around it.

They all nodded, grinning.

Beth pointed to two chimney-like boxes coming out of the ground, about two feet long and two feet wide, each. One was white, the other a metallic gray. "Laundry chute," she said pointing to the white stump, "and garbage chute," she said pointing to the gray.

"Fifteen minutes!" Paisley cried.

"Let's play dress-up!"

They began tossing things on me as though I were one of the jewelry or clothes mannequins in the corner used for trying things on. Beth threw me a white V-neck T-shirt and a white suit, and they fit like a glove, feeling more like yoga pants than anything else. Jessi picked out sapphire blue, strappy wedges that contrasted my eyes and added about one inch to my height. Paisley laid a small golden chain holding a small sapphire flower around my neck, pushed matching studs through my pierced ears and slipped my hand through the Mallana charm bracelet. Beth brushed my curls, pushed through a white headband, and bobbed my hair into a bun. Then they all attacked my face. Beth applied a light pink gloss to my lips from a cupboard near the accessories. Jessi forced my eyelids shut and drew on them with dark-brown eyeliner and flared out my long eyelashes with mascara. Paisley brushed warm pink blush against my bronze skin. They stood back and looked me up and down, pleased with their work. They reapplied their own lip-gloss, straightened their suits and brushed their hair.

"The eyeliner really brings out the green in your eyes," Paisley noted, while the others nodded. And I believed it.

"You look brilliant! Who knew you needed such little work!" Beth teased. And we all laughed. And for one second, I thought, maybe, just maybe, I could be okay here. I could be normal here. I would fit in.

How very wrong I was.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four: Treats and Twists

We sped into an empty Main Room when Beth stopped us.

"Wait, wait, relax. If we are going to go in late, then we're going to go in with style. Chill it."

"But we are three minutes late! I don't want this on my record!" Jessi sobbed.

"We're not in school anymore, we don't have a record, Jess," Paisley corrected. Beth nodded her approval. Now this really seemed outrageous. What was so great about dinner here? Did they put MSG in it so you wouldn't be able to live without it?

The Café was about the size of the Basketball Court, if not doubled, or even tripled, to accommodate the hundreds, if not thousands of kids in here. This room was square, not circular and each of the four walls was painted each Family's color. There were about fifty to sixty eight-seating white tables and white Chinese paper-lanterns hung low from the ceiling, bringing warmth and conversation. I shivered a bit; only now realizing it was practically freezing in here. I was from Los Angeles and I was used to going to Disneyland when I felt like it, not negative one degrees Fahrenheit. Mostly all the tables were full, but here and there, a few unoccupied tables lingered.

"We don't do well in the heat, Claire," Beth whispered in my ear. "We have to remain calm and cool, otherwise….let's just not think about that." She read my mind, and this time, she actually made sense. I could never handle the scorching, desert temperatures of Los Angeles in the summer. My mom said I was an expensive child because I would cry if she didn't turn on the air conditioner to exactly sixty degrees. She joked that that my sister, dad and herself would layer sweaters on top of sweaters and I would sit in my crib and laugh. This memory almost brought tears to my eyes, and I thought about the fact I would never see my mom again. Beth was already about two feet away from me so I quickly swept away the tears with my pinky, careful not to touch the eyeliner.

The girls walked over to a table where three girls already sat. Mostly all the tables were full, but here and there, a few unoccupied tables lingered.

One of the girls was Asian with very cream skin and charcoal hair with thin, shocking red streaks running through. So much for light, soothing shades. One of the other two girls had dark air as well, with very, very deeply tanned skin and warm amber eyes suggesting she was Spanish and the other had emerald green eyes and had the features of a normal, twelve year old American girl, with straight blonde hair and light skin.

"This is Maila Kim," Paisley said pointing to the one with the red streaks, "Ava Wiles," Jessi pointed to the Spanish girl, "and Anna-Lynn Hurst," Beth said, pointing to the last girl.

"And this is Claire Parker," Jessi said. "She's new here and Aria asked Beth to show her around. And of course she's a Mallana."

"Of course," Maila said as she shook my hand.

"You know, you guys always get the new ones," Ava joked as she shook my hand.

"Welcome to SOZ! I hope you really like it here!" Anna-Lynn said happily.

We all sat down in dining chairs that felt like the beanbags. On the tables were menus made of strong, laminated cardstock, but at each seat were plate and glass-sized circles. At the center of the table was a pad of white paper and eight white pens.

"So, um, food is good here?" I asked, picking up my own menu.

"All the food here is amazing!" Maila said, grazing the menu.

"_How would you know? You never eat anything but salad_," Beth's voice said in my head. The others stifled a laugh, indicating that they heard it as well.

Maila went on, suggesting she hadn't heard Beth's telepathic comment. "But I don't know if I should get the Greek Salad or the Caesar Salad. Probably not the Greek Salad because it comes with a falafel. What do you think guys?"

All the other girls rolled their eyes and ignored her as Ava leaned in and told me, "Maila is always on a diet even though she DOESN'T NEED TO LOSE WEIGHT!"

"Okay, relax, I know I don't need to lose weight; I look amazing! I just want to stay healthy. What is wrong with that?" Maila argued.

"We are not saying that there is anything wrong with staying healthy. We want to stay healthy as well. But look at us. We eat normal food and we're fine! But you eat plants all day and run three miles a week. By your own free will!" Jessi countered.

"Fine. Just to prove I'm not some plant-loving, running obsessed psycho-"

"Oh, but you are," Beth muttered under her breath.

Maila glared at her and went on, "I won't eat salad." The glancing at me she said, "In fact, Claire will pick out what I'm going to eat." She folded her arms across her chest and shrugged.

"Have it your way." Paisley smirked and then turned to me and said, "You can order a drink, entrée, side and dessert. You don't have to get all of them, those are just the choices. When you've chosen take a pen and piece of paper and write down your order and put it in your plate circle and do the same for your drink. Dessert will only come after you are done with your entrée and side."

The menu was far too long and I only remembered a few items:

**Main Course**

~Spaghetti

~Fettuccini Alfredo

~Linguine with Lemon

~Pesto and Garlic Pasta

~Cheese Pizza

~Veggie Pizza

~Green Pizza

~Tomato, Mozzarella and Basil Sandwich

~Macaroni and Cheese with Mushrooms and Truffle Butter

~Minestrone Soup

~Irish Potato and Leek Soup

~Broccoli and Cheddar Soup

~Falafel Sandwich

~Grilled Vegetables, Beans and Cheese Burrito

~Kung Pao Vegetables

~Chow Mein

…

**Sides**

~Parmesan Garlic Fries

~Caesar Salad

~Greek Salad

~Garlic Bread

~Lemon Herb Couscous

~Guacamole with Grilled Tortilla

~Seven Layer Bean Dip with Grilled Tortilla

~White Bean Hummus with Pita

…

**Deserts**

Apple Pie

~Banana Cream Pie

~Cherry Pie

~Peach Pie

~Blueberry and Pear Crumble

~Raspberry Tart

~Mixed Fruit Tart

~Strawberry Shortcake

~Triple Fudge Cake

~Ice Cream Sundae

~Banana Split

…

**Drinks**

~Diet Coca Cola

~Diet Pepsi

~Coca Cola

~Pepsi

~Fanta

~7-up

~Sprite

~Strawberry Soda

~Ginger Ale

~Lemonade

~Pink Lemonade

~Apple Juice

~Mango Juice

~Strawberry Smoothie

~Peach Smoothie

~Chocolate Milkshake

~Banana Milkshake

…

My mind started working out calories, fat grams and portion sizes which wasn't very easy when all you had to go by were loopy cursive words. For Maila, I decided on Irish Potato and Leek Soup, Coca Cola, Greek Salad and an Ice Cream Sundae. For myself I ordered Macaroni and Cheese with Mushrooms and Truffle Butter, lemonade and Caesar Salad. My sweet tooth had worn off for some reason.

"No, I cannot have the Ice Cream Sundae. It's the size of this table!" Maila whined.

"For the first time, she is telling the truth," Ava admitted. "Considering food I mean," Ava assured her friend.

"You can share with someone," Paisley murmured.

"How about Claire?" Maila offered. Then turning to me she said, "I mean, if that is okay with you. Is it? Because you didn't get a dessert and I just thought," Malia rambled.

"No, don't worry, Maila. It's alright," I said.

"Are you sure?" she asked.

"Of course! Don't worry about it," I insisted.

The others scribbled down some foods on their piece of paper, but I couldn't make out the words. They then turned the papers over and set them on the drink and plate circles and I did the same with mine and Maila's.

For a couple of seconds, we waited in silence. And some more seconds. And a couple more. When the eerie quiet became too much for me, I said, "So, when does the food get here?"

Beth stared at her watch and held up her index finger, "Wait for it…"

Abruptly, the plate circles went into the tables. They descended slowly, and for a brief moment they disappeared completely. Then they popped up, this time each circle covered with a plate filled with steaming, colorful foods. Then the drinks popped up and tall glasses with brightly colored straws bobbing off the surface emerged, holding lemonade, 7-up, Coca Cola, strawberry soda, peach smoothie, mango juice, Pepsi.

"And this is what I like to call quality fast-food," Anna-Lynn said as she sipped her mango juice. "Take that McDonalds."

The plates had burgers, pasta, pizza, soup, sandwiches resting on them, with delicious aromas wafting up from the food.

"I don't think I can eat all of this food," Maila mumbled.

"Seriously?" Beth scoffed. "Claire didn't even order that much food. Mai, it is not healthy to malnourish yourself and then exercise as if the Olympics are coming. You need to eat. Consume as much food as you can and we will deal with the leftovers later."

"Come on. Take a sip of your soup, Maila," Paisley soothed softly. Jessi dipped the spoon into the piping hot soup and blew on it. Then she waved the spoon under Maila's nose, so the curls of smoke floated up into her nostrils and urged, "Come on, Mai. You know you want some."

She took a very deep sniff, and exhaled slowly, as if she wanted to hold on to the aroma of the soup.

"That smells better than the Japanese Cherry Blossom hand lotion at the Material World," she admitted softly. The twins moved the spoon under her nose in slow circles, until Maila tilted her head forward and took a miniscule sip from her large, dipped soup spoon, like a dainty kitten lapping water with her small tongue.

"That is the most amazing thing I have ever tasted!" Maila exclaimed, and in five minutes half of the big white bowl was empty.

"So what Families are you guys in?" I asked.

"I'm a Speaker," Maila said, pointing to her red streaks.

"Mind," Ava said.

"Shifter," Anna-Lynn said.

"You guys are so lucky you are not Mallanas," Beth announced.

"Oh, and why is that?" Anna-Lynn asked. There was amusement in her voice as Beth said,

"They cut us to three hours of television a day instead of unlimited because the boys were watching through dinner and after 10:00."

"Oh really?" Anna-Lynn asked, with mock-sympathy in her voice. "I truly do feel sorry for you. And while you're limited to three hours of T.V. a day, I'm blessed with having Sydney Sutton and her little slaves, for lack of a better word, in my Family. All they can talk about is their clothes and their hair and Todd Jerkins and _his_ slaves-"

"Who are all Minds for your information," Ava interrupted.

"-and the fact that they deserve to be Mallanas instead of you," Anna-Lynn continued. "By the way, she calls you three-I guess four now-pesky little rats, and some other things I'm not allowed to say, who have stolen her right to be the best she can be. She says you are stunting her growth as the most important Shaif in the world and you are diminishing her potential to be something far more important than a couple of twelve year old babies and says that your position should be given to someone with more experience, someone of the age of, say fifteen years, just like herself. She says her daddy should talk to Aria. That since they were rich they should be able to be in the highest rank, rather than the one where their power really lies."

"Geez, Ann!" Jessi said. "I didn't know you hated us _that_ much."

"I don't!" Anna-Lynn snapped. "They do. They can't get it into their thick skulls that they don't deserve that kind of power. They don't understand that being a Shifter will harness the amount of power they have. Lord, they are annoying. Vishnu should curse them for-"

"Excuse me, who?" I questioned.

"Sometimes I don't realize some don't know my story. I…well, my birth parents abandoned me when I was three. I don't know why, but I know my birth father just lost his job. One day, we drove to the highway. They stopped the car on the side and got off. They took out a couple of bed sheets and my pillow and teddy bear and laid it on the side of the road. Then they took me out and put me on the sheets. They got back in the car and drove off. I cried and cried, but they never came back. I learned at an early age that you couldn't trust some people, no matter how close they got to you. Some homeless men stole my blankets and pillow, and eventually all I had left was my teddy bear. I probably ate once a week, eating whatever people put on the side of the road. After two weeks I thought I should probably go somewhere where there was more shelter, since the cold was kicking in. I walked to safer grounds, mostly going to the back of a Burger King where the cook was nice enough to give me the leftover fries and burger patties. She gave me her sweater once. Then she got caught using some of the next day's supplies to cook me a fresh dinner and she was fired. The new cook kept the back door locked at all time and threw bottles at me, because hey, what's worse than a starved, homeless four year old? I eventually walked to a nicer part of town. There, people would drop nicer things on the ground like torn jackets and umbrella fabrics. I eventually made home behind a grocery store and waited for the baker to throw out the day's uneaten bread like he always did, not even bothering to put it in a bag. I would eat stale bread every day. Then, one day, I got my courage and went into the store. I was going to try to take something.

"There was this Indian boy in a shopping cart and he pointed and said, "Look, Mummy! That girl is wearing torn clothes!" The mother immediately knew I was homeless. After a few days, she came back to my shelter and had an attorney and some papers. Adoption papers. They took me in and I've lived with them ever since. I'm used to a lot of Indian things. I often say things like that without realizing it. Vishnu is a mythological Indian deity."

"Oh." I hadn't realized asking about someone with an interesting name would lead to this. "That's kind of depressing."

Anna-Lynn laughed light-heartedly. It amazed me how happy she was to this day, after going through so much. Bad things happen to good people.

"Let's eat! We don't have a lot of time before the Garpal game," Beth rushed, and took a bite of her pizza.

"What's Garpal?" I asked as I drank my lemonade.

"It's a Zambolian game, sort of like the Zambolian football. And I don't mean soccer," Beth replied, struggling to find the end of cheese coming off her pizza as she pulled with her teeth.

I looked down at my own food. I had ordered the macaroni and cheese. A generous portion of it was on a large square plate, with thick, creamy cheese sauce covering corkscrew pasta and Cromini mushrooms. To my left was a smaller bowl with bright greens covered in creamy Caesar dressing, bursting with color and a lemon wedge on the corner of the plate.

I lifted my fork and stabbed at a few pieces of pasta and a couple of mushrooms. When they entered my mouth, I nearly cried out. It reminded me of Mom. The crispy Parmesan crust and creamy, cheesy, decadent sauce covering soft pasta and beefy mushrooms reminded me of her mac n' cheese that she would make every Friday night. There was an added luxury to the sauce, something that had a nice marriage with the mushrooms and cheese, that I realized was the truffle butter. It tasted like heaven. But, more importantly, it tasted like home.

The rest of the meal went in silence. Mostly.

Halfway through, Maila asked me, "So where did you land? When Estania brought you here. I'm very curious." She was poking her Greek Salad with distaste.

"I landed in the Research Room," I answered after swallowing a mouthful of crisp, crunchy lettuce covered in delicious Caesar dressing.

This seemed to interest not only Maila, but the whole table. Beth put down her Diet Pepsi. "What? Why didn't you tell me?" She seemed alarmed and a little hurt.

"I'm sorry," I apologized. "I didn't think it mattered."

"No, it's not your fault, Claire," Beth said. "It is just that people who land in the Research Room are supposed to be geniuses. They are supposed to be very important to the future of SOZ, the greatest leaders. When the director gives birth, the baby goes to the place where they would land if they weren't the director's child. Madam Mason herself landed in the Research Room, as well as one of the first directors of SOZ."

It was quiet for a little bit as people ate their food and contemplated what Beth had just said. Something flashed into my head; when Estania was talking to me in Aria's office. She said I was special. She said that I was a leader. Mysterious, confusing and a little scary.

About two minutes after we finished our food, dessert came. But no one was looking at theirs because mine was taking up half the table.

On a large silver platter was an old-fashioned sundae glass, like the ones in the `50s diners. Inside the six inch glass were at least seven perfect scoops of vanilla ice cream stacked neatly on top of each other. Surrounding it were small glass bowls holding toppings like marshmallows, gummy bears, fruit, whipped cream and chocolate syrup.

All the girls forced down their deserts and eventually they disappeared. Then they grabbed spoons and started dumping the toppings in. After eight girls and eight spoons, the sundae glass was squeaky-clean.

"I think I'm going to pass out," Maila exclaimed.

"You are really not going to," Beth assured her.

"We better get moving," Paisley and Jessi said. "See you at the bleachers."

"But we're not sitting on your side, remember?" Ava reminded. "And we're going to win tonight."

"Sure you are," Beth said. "Keep on telling yourself that. A high self-esteem is healthy."

We all laughed and Ava took the opportunity to wiggle out, Anna-Lynn and Maila following her.

"Why aren't we sitting on the same side?" I was curious to the sudden change of behavior toward each other.

"Because we are playing each other, Claire," Beth responded. "Tonight's game is the Mallanas against the Minds. And we take our sports very seriously." As though that needed to be cleared up.

When we entered the Rec Room, Beth explained, "In Garpal, there are two teams of five. These are the Finals, the two teams being the Minds and us. On each side are bronze eggs. When it's your turn, your main player, called a Shattle, passes the line and gets past the defense- though they are not allowed to touch the Shattle while they are retrieving the egg- and grabs the egg. Then he/she has to make it across the white line back onto his side. This is the time when the opposing team is allowed to try and stop him/her, though once he/she gets back on their side, the other team can't touch them. The best part is that you get to use your powers. In this case, the Minds could, I don't know, convince the Mallanas to make way for you as you dashed back to your team. But for Mallanas they can only use the powers that the other team has, and none other or they are disqualified. If we are playing the Shifters we can only use our Shifting powers, etc.

The elevator doors dinged open and we entered a busy, bustling room of chatty girls.

"We should go get changed," Paisley said. "I cannot bear to be in these clothes for another second." And then she disappeared into her closet like the others.

I went over to my bed and then into my closet. Looking around, I realized I was used to my old closet, my old clothes, not these strangers. I made my way over to the casual ensemble and skimmed the rack. I selected a navy blue, loose shirt with wide kimono style sleeves and dark skinny jeans. I kept my blue sandals but traded all my jewelry, excluding my bracelet, for simple diamond studs. I slung the hair-tie out of my waves, disassembling the bun and pulled put the headband. I brushed my hair gently and took a couple of strands, braided them, and pinned them back. I slipped on a black blazer to protect me from the cold climate. Then I pressed the button on the floor, identical to the one near my bed. It sent me shooting toward the ceiling and for a scary moment I thought I was going to hit my head and start bleeding and have a concussion and die. I didn't even know if that was possible in that order.

Paisley, Jessi and Beth were already sitting on their beds waiting for me. Paisley and Jessi truly lived up to their twin title in matching cropped purple T-shirts, black jeans, purple Vans and tight pony-tails. Beth was dressed in a short white, cotton, button-down dress, black leggings and gold ballet flats, which made her beautiful, flaming red hair stand out. When I emerged, they all stood up.

"Aren't you looking smashing!" Beth grinned. "All thanks to me of course. Just kidding. Now get a move on or we'll have a tough time getting in!"

That was an understatement.

The entrance to the Gym was clogged with people, far worse than any plumber could think of. One very tall, burly man in a white uniform stood next to the door holding an iPad. A small white cord was hanging limply out of the side of the iPad. After we got in line, all of the girls took out white box thingies, about four inches long and two inches wide, with a three inch screen on it. There were four buttons on it. They all pressed the right-most button and a small tab, about the size of the end of a Popsicle stick, popped out. They laid their right thumbs on it. There was a soft, gentle humming and then, after a few seconds they lifted their thumbs and the tab slid back in.

Jessi caught me staring and explained, "They're called lineans. Sort of like phones with only text messaging on them. But they are also like our ID card. We were running a finger scan so that the linean and our bouncer, Roger, over there," she pointed to the large man with the iPad, "knows for sure that it is us and not someone trying to impersonate us. You need your linean for everything, even for checking out books at the Library. The tricky part is that you have to find it. The only way to get a linean is if you find it. The staff hides your linean somewhere and you have to find it. It tells them about your character. Some people have to buy theirs at the Material World because they could not find it."

After ten minutes, we finally made it to the Gym door.

"Hello Roger!" Beth greeted brightly. "How's it going?"

He chuckled heartily and replied with an Irish accent. " 'Tis a fine evening for some ale don't you think?" We all giggled beneath the palms of our hands. "Not that I would have any in me possession," he added, as if only just noticing we were a group of twelve year old girls.

"Not that we would want any." Jessi smiled.

He chuckled again and then glanced at me. "Haven't seen you before with this lot," he said, pointing a large finger at the girls. "Are you new?"

"Yes," I began. "I'm-"

"Claire Parker," he finished. "Arrived today at 2:30, landed in the Research Room, born on July 5th, 1999, daughter of Cindy and Joshua Parker, sister of Julia- oh. Sorry about that. Get a bit excited with the new ones." He tapped his iPad a couple times and then held out his hand. The girls slapped their lineans into his beefy palm. One by one, he plugged the small cable from the iPad into a USB port in the lineans, waited for a beep and then handed them back. The door slid open.

"Enjoy the game!" he said as we walked into the Basketball court. The room had been transformed into some kind of flea market. Booths had been set up, selling memorabilia for the Mallanas and Minds, as well as peanuts, foam fingers and other nick-knacks. Loads of people formed hundreds of twisting, winding lines.

"Why aren't people getting seats?" I asked.

"They think buying pins and clips is a once-in-a-lifetime-chance they shouldn't miss." Beth shook her head. "We just go and get seats. We always get the best ones. And there will always be other opportunities to buy things." she walked forward and scanned her eye for the Sports Main Room. Only a few people were dotted around the room, betting on the winning team and guessing who was most likely to break a part of their spine in the first ten minutes. I didn't like the odds of that.

Paisley stepped toward the door labeled Garpal and scanned her eye.

Garpal was played in a room that looked like an ice hockey rink, except minus the ice, with big sheets of glass shielding a kind of field. The ground was covered in grass and vines clung to the glass, exotic plants shooting up the sides. A solitary, thick white line divided the field into two separate sections.

Both sides had a large, twisted, chunky crystal spiral that rose to the ceiling. Encrusted on each side of it were five oval shaped patches that were covered by a thin-netted mesh-like fabric.

"That is for storing eggs once you have acquired them. We call it Zorecma, meaning "holder" or "jail-keeper"," Beth said. "The holes are called egg chambers and the cloth covering turns into metal after you push the egg in, to prevent the egg from falling out or being taken back from the other team. Although it is against the rules to steal back your own egg and the metal is impenetrable, many people still slam themselves into it and it usually results in a broken nose."

"Let's sit here," Beth announced suddenly, plopping herself onto the fluffy, cushioned bleachers. We all dropped down after her. From our seats, we could see the whole Garpal field in front of us. Slowly, the crowd from the Basketball court poured into the room until every bleacher was full to the brim, everybody crammed in. At the end of our row, I saw a familiar face. Aria Mason sat on the edge of the bleacher wearing a deep blue, spaghetti-strapped summer dress that came right above her knees, showing her toned, tan and delicate calves, her manicured toes slipped into white flip-flops, a wide smile on her face, her head inclined as she clutched her linean, obviously messaging someone. Then her smile was ambushed; her face twisted into a frown as she stood up and headed for a small door at the back of the Garpal field.

Before we knew it Aria was in the center of the field holding a microphone.

"Well, um," Aria said and then cleared her throat. "Hello there, Shaifs! I guess you are pretty pumped about the Finals, huh?" This received great amounts of cheering and clapping and rude foam-finger pointing to the opposing team from the audience. It took a while for them to calm down and after they did, she began again. "Well, I…..uh….. I am sorry to say this but we have encountered a small mishap and, basically, the game is off." This received large amounts of booing and cursing, and still rude foam finger pointing. It took even longer for them to calm down but when they did, Aria returned with a stern tone.

"Now, now, we are Shaifs are we not? We _do not _react to life's disappointments like this!" Then she softened up a little bit and said, "How about our lovely trainers set up the EC Room so that we can register for them today instead?" she offered, her gaze remaining on the top row of white suits that was the staff, as they groaned and complained. "It will be _our treat,_" she said and those two words made all of the staff quiet and sit up straight, their faces blank and ghostly pale. I wouldn't be surprised if those two words were magical; after all, I had just recently been transported hundreds of miles by a rock. That kind of makes it impossible to be surprised.

The staff all nodded and marched themselves out the door, single filed, headed to the EC Room.

"We should get there quickly or we won't be able to get the mob," Beth urged. "Oh, look there are the others!" she announced pointing to Ava, Maila and Anna-Lynn. They were all decked out: Ava in dark jeans, black Ugg boots, a white lace cami and a purple blazer, Maila in a black leather jacket, jeans, a loose, silk, yellow blouse and high heels and Anna-Lynn in a dark pink V-neck T-shirt tucked into a flowing black mini-skirt and black flip-flops.

"I can't believe they cancelled the game!" we heard Ava say as we got closer. Then turning around to Beth, she said, "But we would have won anyway, so I guess there was no point."

"Fat chance of that, the way your number twenty-five plays," Beth sneered.

"What's wrong with number twenty-five?" Ava asked defensively.

"You seriously did not just genuinely ask that question."

"What if I did?"

"Are you blind?"

"What do you mean?"

"With that leg issue of his-"

"He doesn't have a leg issue!"

"Are you kidding? He ran out of lunch the other day to the nurse's office because he fractured something!"

"Were you hallucinating? He went to the nurse because Carissa Carter punched him after he broke up with her!"

"Sure she did. Someone also must have hit you hard in the head, seeing as you can't remember!"

"I cannot believe you just said that!"

Finally, as we were headed to the EC Room and they continued to argue, I asked Anna-Lynn, "Who is number twenty-five?"

"I highly doubt they even know," she giggled, soon followed by an uncontrollable chorus of loud laughs.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Snares and Glares

"That's Mrs. Downy," Ava whispered as we entered the EC Room, a large chamber with booths along the wall and friendly trainers holding information sheets and register clipboards. Ava had pointed to a slightly round, smiling woman in a white dress with gray hair. "She's the head of garment management. Basically, she's the laundry lady. She is super nice, and everybody loves her, but one year she did a course for garment management and, well….. nobody signed up. She complained to Madam Mason, but there was nothing she could do about it. Now she just helps our cook, Ms. Baker, recruit people."

"You talk about it as if we are joining a cult or something," I joked and she laughed.

"No, but we do have a test at the end of the course, which we change along with our schedule, and the trainers take a lot of pride in their students' test scores. There was even a fight once. One of our physical trainers, Tim Santich" she pointed to a man with a clean shave face and slicked back hair with a balding spot, "got into a fight with Thomas Domer, our vice director" she pointed to a tall man white pale skin and plain features. "Our vice director teaches a class called Computer Technology. He had at least a twenty percent increase in test scores than Tim and he was bragging a bit and Mr. Santich just couldn't handle it. Mr. Santich gave Mr. Domer two black eyes and an ugly purple bruise right above his-"

"Now, now, we don't want to scare Claire on her first day, do we?" Beth interrupted. We walked towards a sign that said something about cooking and exploring the culinary arts. That interested me, for if it weren't for this little dent in my life, I would have been a chef. There were three hobbies I held dear to me that I would never let go. Cooking, singing, and writing. I walked over to the booth where I saw Mrs. Downy and a young woman, maybe in her mid-twenties. She had shoulder-length dark hair with bouncy curls, and a tall cook's hat pulled over them. She donned a white chef's outfit and had a white apron on around her waist.

When she saw me staring at her sign, she smiled at me. A warm smile. A trust-worthy smile. Immediately she felt like someone I could trust, someone who could be my friend.

"Claire, this is Ms. Baker," Beth said.

"Oh, please!" she cried out. "Call me Evangeline." She shook my hand. "Are you interested in joining my course?"

"Yes. I love to cook," I said, a little too obviously.

"Great! Someone's going to have to take over when I'm too old," she laughed. "Well, there are three types of sessions: Beginner, Advanced and Intermediate. Advanced is three courses long. Intermediate is four. Beginner is just one. The outlines for each type of session change every time, so you will never be bored," she said as she handed us all information sheets. "If you are convinced enough, here's the sign-up sheet." Evangeline grinned as me, Ava and Anna-Lynn wrote down our names, Families, email addresses and our linean numbers. Unfortunately I didn't have a linean so I left that area blank. Evangeline took one look at the paper and then asked me, "New?"

"Yeah. Just came in this afternoon," I answered.

"Wonderful! You are lucky you got this group, they're the best ones," she said. "Unlike that one over there." She had pointed to a group of six people, around fifteen years old. There were three girls and three guys. One girl and one guy led the pack, their heads held high as if they were much too good to be here. The rest trailed behind like pathetic, lost puppies. By the looks of disgust on the girls' faces I could tell that the girl in the front was Sidney Sutton and the boy was Todd Jerkins. The rest weren't identifiable. They caught us staring and shot us a nasty glare. Then there was a whiff of heavy air and Evangeline's sign blew over, nearly sweeping her off her feet. Evangeline didn't like this at all, and I saw a look of extreme anger flash across her pretty face. She closed her eyes for a minute, whispering a soft, almost inaudible language I had never heard before.

"What is she doing?" I whispered to Jessi in awe.

"She's a Speaker. She's manipulating the air. She's very good at it. Wait for it…"

Suddenly the air in front of Sidney blocked up and compressed. I could feel it, I think because I was a Mallana. She planted one foot in front of her and crashed violently to the ground. All her friends helped her up but she kept on slipping. Her heels had snapped in half and her hair was in an awkward position. You could practically see the bottles of hair spray she had used.

We all burst out laughing, including Evangeline. Sidney turned red as blood and was about to retort when a trainer walked by and asked if everything was alright. Sidney kept her head down and said she was fine. The trainer turned around and a small smile crept up her face as she winked. We all started shaking uncontrollably as laughter bubbled deep out of our throats.

"Hyperventilating!" I cried as I tried to catch my breath but ended up laughing some more.

"My stomach!" Anna-Lynn exclaimed as she clutched her belly.

Eventually, (and it took a long time) the laughter died down.

"Phew," Evangeline said, one hand on her hip and the back of her other hand wiping off her forehead. "I haven't laughed so hard in…. actually I have never laughed so hard."

"Well I can't wait to see you tomorrow! I have a Beginners class taught by one of my assistants from 4:50-5:20. Then from 7:20-8:00 is my Advanced class. 8:15-9:05 is my Intermediate. I teach Advanced and Intermediate by myself and my assistants teach Beginners. I think you three should go straight to Advanced. See you at 7:20!"

And then we walked over to a booth that was decorated with quills and scrolls. It said "Writing Etiquette" in fancy cursive. I walked over and signed up for the Intermediate at 8:05-8:30. Our last stop was the vocal coaching and I signed up for the Advanced class at 8:35 -9:10. Beth looked at her watch and said it was already 9:00 and that we should head in for hibernation.

Soon enough we had parted ways with Ava, Anna-Lynn and Maila and we were going into the Rec Room of the Malllana's Dorms. We stepped into the elevator and shot up towards the level that we were supposed to be on. Paisley opened the door and we strode in. Girls were much quieter now, some whispering or reading books.

We all collapsed down on our beds, except I hit something hard. I had sat on a white MacBook Pro.

"Um, did anybody lose one?" I asked, holding up the laptop.

"Oh, that's probably yours," Beth said barely glancing at it. "We all get one to store information from the Research Room and stuff. And plus, what would we be able to do without the Internet? There's a drawer under the counter in your closet. Keep it there. In the morning we'll take it out again and use it." I couldn't believe it. I had been waiting for a laptop for so long. All my friends at home had one and I felt left out. I knew a MacBook Pro cost at least two-thousand dollars, if not more. I carefully laid the laptop in my lap and sat down. The mattress was extremely soft and shaped around my body, ten times better than any memory foam. It felt so comfortable. I just wanted to fall asleep…..

"Don't lie down," Jessi warned. "There's a chemical in our mattresses and comforters, it makes it feel warm and comforting. You'll fall asleep in less than five minutes. We Shaifs tend to have nightmares, horrid, gruesome ones. Everybody gets them. Our scientists have developed a chemical made of different Zambolian ingredients and they put it in our mattress. It's sort of a duller. It makes us fall asleep, nightmare and dream-free. It takes out the dulling effect at exactly 7:00 A.M., so we wake up and have time to get ready and stuff. And then we start our day. We should go get into our pajamas." Then they disappeared below the surface.

I reached my closet and went over to the counter and opened the first drawer under the counter; there was a depression in the cushioned drawer that was the exact size of the laptop. I slipped it in. There were two other depressions and one held a charging cord; the other was an empty rectangle shape. I started taking all my jewelry off, but kept my bracelet on; I didn't want to take it off. I reached into the makeup drawer and picked up some makeup-remover wipes. They really had thought of everything. I took off my eyeliner and tossed the wipes down the garbage chute once I was done. My lip-gloss had dried anyway so I just applied some chap-stick since my lips had the tendency to get very, very dry. I looked through my cubbies of casual clothes and found a pajama cubby. I chose a simple, soft plain white T-shirt and blue and white plaid pajamas. I brushed my hair soft took of my heels. I slipped on warm, fuzzy blue polka-dot socks and moccasin slippers filled with soft, faux-fur. Then I took a moment to look around the room. My eyes drifted to the counter area. There were some drawers I hadn't seen yet. The first drawer under the laptop drawer had things like toothbrushes, toothpaste, hair-brushes and make-up. The next two drawers held jewelry with a few empty slots in each drawer so that I could choose my own at the Material World. The bottom cubbies held shoes. Then in the Vans cubby there was a small square. I crouched down to investigate further. It wasn't drawn; it was like a cut-out. I touched it lightly with the tips of my fingers and it fell in then reappeared with a small white object: I had found my linean.

I slipped it into the empty depression in the laptop drawer and then resurfaced into the sleeping chamber.

Beth looked at me and said, "You take exactly four minutes to change."

"Actually it's more like three since it took me around one minute to find my linean," I countered.

Everybody's ears perked up. "You found it so soon?" Beth asked, a hint of surprise on her face.

"Is that bad?" I asked.

" 'Course not!" Beth assured. "Just a bit unusual…." Her eyes were slightly hazy, I could see her mind was elsewhere.

The topic was quickly changed by twins and we discussed our favorite music and books and movies and shows and food, and other general stuff. By the end of the night I felt I had known these girls for a long time. At around 10:10 everyone got a bit drowsy so we said our goodnights. I lay down fully, exhausted. I pulled the covers over my arms, the warm rushing to my chilly arms. I was out like a candle.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six: Rise and Shine, Sleeping Beauty!

I woke up suddenly, unexpectedly and a little weirdly. The lights were on, out of nowhere and the people were up and functioning. All of the girls separated into two streams and entered the two bathrooms on either side.

"Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty!" Paisley said, in a chipper voice.

"Oh, no, you're one of those morning people." I grunted, got up and smoothed out my hair. "Hey, I need to get my toothbrush and paste and stuff, you can go ahead if you want," I suggested.

"Oh, no, we'll wait for you," Jessi insisted as Beth followed her. "Get a suit and stuff too, ok?"

"Oh, I will. Thanks." I smiled and went down to my closet. I opened the second drawer and took out a blue toothbrush that looked amazingly similar to the one at home and a bottle of Colgate and a hairbrush. I smoothed down my hair with my fingers and headed back up. The girls waited for me and I followed them to the right bathrooms.

We entered an amazingly large, long room. There were at least fifteen sinks on marble countertops and large circle mirrors above each. There were like twenty bathroom stalls, back to back and there were no lines at all. At the farther end of the room were over thirty shower stalls with doors that came all the way down and attached changing rooms. There was a silver plaque with each girls name on it. Every girl had a shower. That was so cool.

We brushed our teeth and everything and then headed for the showers. I looked as the girls got in and then saw my shower right next to Beth's. I stepped into a tub and saw that in a shower caddy was Pantene Medium-Thick Split-End Protection Shampoo and Conditioner, exactly what I used at home. There was Dove Body Wash, as well as a shower cap and lufa and honey lavender bath salts. I got in and adjusted the dial and pulled. Warm water poured onto my head and it felt good. Nice. I had been meaning to wash my hair yesterday at home, but obviously that hadn't happened. I felt grime working its way out of my curls and that felt good too. I worked the shampoo into a thick lather and massaged it into my scalp. After conditioning, my hair was smooth and sleek. Yesterday it had been a bit too wavy but now it would be normal. I stepped out into the changing room and dried myself. A suit was sitting there for me on a plush chair, in front of a full-length mirror identical to the one in my closet. I pulled on my suit and wrapped a towel around my dripping hair. There was a hairdryer plugged into the wall, lying on the counter next to the sink, all in my _changing room. _I dried my hair and thought about using the hairdryer as a microphone and then realized I probably did not want to embarrass myself on my first full day. I dried my hair completely and then ran a brush through it, my hair feeling extremely soft and fluffy (in a good way) and obedient. I twisted it into a long braid and pinned my bangs to the side. I slipped my feet into white ballet flats that were sitting on the floor for me.

I stepped out to the sink area and saw that Jessi, Paisley and Beth were waiting for me. We walked into the sleeping chamber and the girls went down to get ready. I entered my closet and applied some smoky brown eye shadow that brought out the green in my eyes and coated my lips in light pink lip-gloss. I put in black rose studs and slipped my linean into one of the several pockets inside my suit jacket. The linean didn't bulge out; it was carefully concealed in my suit. I took my laptop in my hand and slipped the charger in a pocket. Then I went back up.

Beth and the others were already there and Beth said, "It is 8:05 but we should hurry if we want to get our table.

By the time we drudged through the crowd it was 8:14, but we walked in anyway. There were about three tables that were full and we raced in and scrammed to our table to claim our seats. The crowd came in and chatter filled the room. Soon, Ava, Maila and Anna-Lynn joined us, all our stomachs grumbling.

I took a look at the breakfast menu:

**Breakfast**

-Buttermilk Pancakes (served with Hash Browns and eggs)

-Chocolate Chip Pancakes (served with Hash Browns and eggs)

-Blueberry Pancakes (served with Hash Browns and eggs)

-Strawberry and Banana Pancakes (served with Hash Browns and eggs)

-Whole Wheat Pancakes (served with Hash Browns and eggs)

-Stuffed French Toast with Berry

-Banana-Stuffed French Toast

-Whole Wheat French Toast

-Original French Toast

-Belgian Waffles

-Fresh Fruit Crepe

-Nutella Crepe

-Chocolate Croissant

-Croissant

-Spinach and Mushroom Omelet with Hash Browns

-Cheddar Omelet with Hash Browns

-Garden Omelet with Hash Browns

-Garden Stuffed Crepes

-Lucky Charms

-Cheerios

-Honey Nut Cheerios

-Special K

-Cocoa Puffs

-Fruit Loops

-Apple Jacks

-Raisin Bran

-Homemade Granola Cereal

-Rice Krispies

-Trix

**Beverages**

-Lemonade

-Strawberry Lemonade

-Orange Juice

-Columbian Roast Coffee

-Decaffeinated Coffee

-Tea

-2% Milk

-Chocolate Milk

-Hot Chocolate

-Apple Juice

-Grapefruit Juice

-Mango Juice

I took a pen and piece of paper and wrote down Original French Toast and Apple Juice and laid them down on my circles. A moment later the food popped up and everyone started eating.

"How'd you sleep last night?" Beth asked me in between bites of chocolate chip pancakes.

"Amazing!" I said. "How did you sleep?"

"Pretty good," she said. "So, today we go into the Training Rooms and our trainer, Daniel, will teach us from 9:05 and we break at lunch, which is 12:20. Then we resume at 1:10 with Martha, our other trainer. We keep two trainers for a whole course, which is three weeks long if you remembered. Then we switch. At 3:25 the lesson ends and at 3:30 we are in the Research Room." Then she remembered something and cursed under her breath.

"We didn't get you your headset!" she moaned. "Well Aria probably sent one to Catherine, our Research Room supervisor. She'll give it to you there. Then we have Free Time and we can head to the Library because it's lovely. Do you like to read?"

"I am a reading-geek," I admitted.

"Great! We have at least one copy of every book ever written, from everywhere around the world. We have one of the first fifteen copies of the original Odyssey ever made," Jessi bragged.

"Anyway," Beth continued, "it is amazing and now that you have your linean you can check out books. Speaking of which, what's your linean number?"

"Oh," I said. "I don't know." I took my linean out and scanned my thumb. The screen said: Welcome Claire Parker! We are happy to present you with your linean. Your number is 6490-5520-7836. I tilted my linean towards Beth's and then everyone else's so they could copy it into their lineans.

We quickly finished our breakfast and headed to the Training Rooms. We entered a room like the one that led to the Dorms, with four doors saying Minds, Shifters, Speakers and Mallanas. Walking into the Mallana room, we entered a colossal room with soft, padded, yoga-mat like floors and bleachers in only one row around the room, similar to the ones in the Basketball and Garpal courts; comfy and soft.

We quickly chose seats at the center of the room where a single bean-bag chair lay. Then the trainer, Daniel, a large man in his early forties with a slightly graying beard, a buzz cut and smile-wrinkles at the edge of his eyes, came in. Everybody fell silent as he entered. His eyes grazed around the room, carefully studying the bleachers, making sure everyone was there. His gaze fell on me and gave me a quick smile before he went on.

"So," he began in a loud voice, "before we start our martial training, I would like to introduce a new trainee: Claire Parker. Today is her first day of training and let's do our best not to scare her." The fact that everybody here knew who I was probably scared me more than what we were going to do next.

Daniel snapped his fingers and he was gone. In about three minutes he was back, carrying at least fifteen self-standing punching bags, as though he were carrying fifteen feathers. He did this three more times, so that there were enough for two people to share a punching bag. Then he was gone again and brought back at least twenty boxing mitts. He also did this two more times, so each person had their own mitts.

"Today," he said in a voice almost as big as him, "we are going to be practicing punching. I know a lot of you have this done but some still need to master the art of throwing a perfect punch. Remember," he said as he bent his knees and brought his mitted fists up to his face, "to always be in ready position, with your knees bent like mine, and your elbows sticking out, your fists close to your face, around your teeth area, but never blocking you view. If anyone tries to hit you, you want to be able to see them. Also you need to be quick on your feet; if you get hit, you need to get up. Let me remind you again why we are doing this. Not the punching, but the training. When you turn twenty-one, you will go on your mission. You will meet bad people on this mission and they are most probably going to want to kill you. You need to stay alive because, well, you like being alive. Hopefully. And we like you alive too. And we need you alive to protect Zambolia, to protect our other family. Is that understood?"

Everyone nodded.

"Good. Now pick a partner and hit the bags fifteen times on each hand and then trade off. Go."

I turned towards the girls and Beth joined me, while Paisley and Jessi chose each other.

"So, it's pretty self-explanatory, but if you want I can go first and show you," Beth offered while he tightened the straps on her mitts.

"Nah, it's ok, I think I want to try for a second," I said.

"Sure."

I put my hands into the mitts, my hands suddenly feeling a little heavier. I lowered my knees, raised my fists and I felt anger swelling in me. Out of nowhere I was so mad. Anger, pain, I had never felt like this before. I slammed my fist into the punching bag. It flew side to side, as I hit it over and over again. The pain, where was it from? Why did I feel like crying? Wherever it was from, whatever had caused it, I felt better when I hit the bag. Eventually, I knocked down the thirty pound punching bag. The whole room was silent. Some of the guys were staring at me as if they thought me knocking over a punching bag increased their chances with me; others looked a bit ashamed and tried to check out their muscles without being too obvious; others just looked at me with pure fear. And the girls did what all girls always did, they whispered; the jealous ones tried to push over their punching bags so the guys would look at them, but only managed to break a manicured fingernail.

Daniel told everyone to be quiet (though no one was really speaking) and get back to their punching in an attempt to get people to stop staring at me. Eventually the people got back to punching, some people still whispering.

"Who knew there could be so much anger in a little girl?" Beth joked as she began to hit the punching bag, with only a little less force than I did. I could see her thin, well-toned arms through her suit. I tried to laugh with her, and I guess I did a good job of acting, but I couldn't laugh. Back then, there was more pain than anger. Excruciating, unimaginable pain, that I had never felt before, that came from a place deep within me, I place I didn't know how to describe. And I really wanted to find out.

After our punching practice, we did some stretches and ran a lap around the large room. The room was about half a mile, but, despite the size, Beth and I came first, Paisley and Jessi right behind us. I would have usually been breathing heavily, feeling warm and lightly sweating but Beth told me how the special fabric used to make the suits wicked away the heat and sweat and remained at a neutral and cooling temperature. That was certainly helpful. 12:20 came right as the last people ran in. Daniel said goodbye and mentioned that tomorrow we would be doing some kicking practice. Seeing as I have a black belt in karate, kicking should have been just wonderful.

We made our way too lunch and Anna-Lynn and Maila were waiting for us. Ava was in the bathroom in the far right corner. The lunch menu was practically the same as the dinner menu, but with more soups and sandwiches. I ordered a Portobello on a butter bun and with French fries and a Pepsi. My parents had a strict no-dessert at lunch rule and I decided to follow through with it. If I couldn't see them ever again, I might as well practice their disciplines. The food popped up and soon Ava arrived, apologizing for her tardiness.

"Claire, I never knew you were a wrestler," Paisley joked, referring to my punching incident.

"What happened?" Maila asked.

"Claire literally knocked the life out of that punching bag today." Jessi smiled. "And I mean _literally._ All the guys were staring. All the girls were jealous."

"Well, if you're able to make any high-egoistic Mallana girl jealous then you are definitely cool," Maila said. The girls laughed but I just sighed. We continued to eat and everybody broke into their own conversations, and I had an interesting discussion with Anna-Lynn about how big SOZ HQ was. Apparently, before they died out a long time ago, Shaifs who had specialized in sorcery and spells cast a charm that makes the size of the rooms multiply to fit the amount of people that want to go there decently. The building wasn't really that big, it just felt like it. The air would expand around us so we don't feel stuffy and we have enough oxygen and we get more space.

Later I asked Ava how we would get to the kitchens after training. She said to meet her and Anna-Lynn in front of the Café and we would all go together.

We returned to the Mallana training rooms after and it had sort of a makeover. The bleachers were gone and we had nowhere to sit. People were on the soft ground, surfing the Web. But one girl was leaned against the wall. She had wild, curly dark brown hair. I couldn't see her face much because her nose was stuffed in a very thick book, but I could make out intense brown eyes zooming the pages and light freckles on her nose. Other people were staring at her too, and either she didn't notice or she did a very good job looking like she didn't. She looked like she didn't care what the world saw or said to or about her. She was independent and she was real. And I liked that.

Beth informed me that the second part didn't involve anything physical, except for a bit of yoga at the beginning, to increase longevity so we are up and ready for anything. The rest was mostly about speaking _Amonevai_, the national language of Zambolia and other stuff like that.

A few moments later a woman in her late thirties stepped in with very a short blonde boy cut. She kind of looked like Jane Lynch, but with friendlier, although firmer eyes.

"Hello class, we have a lot to do today so let's get to it. Welcome Claire Parker, and I hope you enjoy SOZ," she said, and briefly met my eyes with a twinkling smile. She cleared her throat and went on. "Well, let's get started." She flicked her wrist slightly and at least sixty beanbag chairs came into view, with a top on them, like a desk. We all went over and placed our laptops and lineans on the desks and then took off our shoes and went back to the center of the room, crowded around Martha.

"Today, we are going Back to Basics. We are basically doing a review of everything you have learned with me as your trainer. Seeing all of you have been in my class for at least a year each, we have to get right to it. So everyone, on your bottoms." She spiraled down and we followed, all assembled in neat rows.

Martha's legs were crossed, her hands folded in the Namaste position, eyes closed, her voice calm and soothing; you could hear a feather delicately fall to the floor. We all copied her stance. Then she began talking.

"Extend your legs far enough and then reach to your toes," she soothed, her voice soft as down. "Bend your back as much as you can."

"Now come up and lay on your back. Place your hands and feet firmly on the ground, your elbows and knees kind of pointing out, just like I have. The push yourself forward into the bridge position." We did lunges and stretches and a couple of handstands and some unusual twists and turns that felt awkward doing in public. Fifteen minute later, we sat on our knees with our eyes closed, meditating. My body felt cool and calm and relaxed; I felt angelic. Unstoppable. After about three minutes of meditation, we got back up and walked over to our desks. I thrust my feet into the cozy ballet flats, waiting patiently to be accompanied by my feet.

We slid into our beanbag chairs and my body welcomed the comfortable support. Beth opened her laptop and showed me how to set it up and everything. I chose my own password and had to think about it for a while. I finally decided on one: _imafaan. _Simple, yet easy to remember and Beth assured me nobody hacked into computers here so whatever I chose would be safe. I don't know why I chose that word. I had no idea what it meant but it was the word that brought me here, into this whole new world where I was something more than your average thirteen year old. Where I was important, even special. And that meant a lot to me.

Opening up a Word document on my computer, Beth then took a small microchip and copied all her past information onto my laptop. She set up a document library and told me to go to the file named "_Amonevai" _and I opened it up. Cute, swirly font flashed onto the screen and had a list of basic words, a conversation dictionary and a normal Amonevai dictionary that apparently wasn't very formal so we would sound native and we don't ever embarrass ourselves if we ever need to "stop by" Zambolia. We practiced saying simple words, then phrases, then sentences and had conversations. After around another hour, I could talk fluently for at least ten minutes in _Amonevai._ I loved it. The language was beautiful; the words silky and smooth off my tongue. Martha informed us that tomorrow we would be visiting different international languages, starting with Spanish and French, then working our way to languages from countries I haven't even heard of. We shut down our computers and put our stuff in our pockets and talked for the last few minutes. Then it was 4:50 and I set off to the EC Room by myself for Vocal Coaching.

I scanned my eye and walked into the empty EC Room and stumbled into Caelan Bryce. His eyes twinkled when he smiled at me. He locked his eyes with mine and for a moment he was all I could see. His white fedora was dipped down to the side a bit.

"Hello," he greeted with a heavy Australian accent.

"Hello," I responded.

"I don't think we've met before. I'm-"

"Caelan Bryce." After days of people telling me who I was, it was refreshing to do it to someone else.

"Alright," he said. "You know who I am but I don't know you. Are we going to do anything about that?"

"What kind of mysterious person would I be if I told you who I am?" I countered.

He laughed at this and I smiled, only a bit, not to show I was kind of liking him.

"Are you here for Vocal Coaching?" he asked.

Seeing as I couldn't avoid every question of his, I replied with a simple, "Yes, I am."

"Same. How old are you?"

"Thirteen."

"What's your name?"

"Claire."

"Good to know we're on a first-name basis."

"I agree."

He leaned in closer. "Are we going to move on from this small-talk?"

"I don't know, are we?"

Before he could answer, kids streamed through the door, followed by a tall, thin lady with soft eyes and long red hair that tumbled down her shoulders. She gave everyone a wide smile and almost reminded me of Beth. When she spoke she had a very slight French accent.

"Hello everybody, and welcome to Advanced Vocal Coaching. Today all we are really going to do is get on a first-name basis." I instinctively peered at Caelan who grinned at me. I grinned back. "My name is Madame Rosaline, but you can call me Rose. I am going to ask everybody's names and I have a seating chart for you guys and then we will sit down and discuss what we are going to do this course. Starting over here, who are you?" She was pointing to a young child named Jeanne, from Switzerland. She went down the road and I heard names like Amia, and Dorothy, and Harker and Gavin. But the most important one was Caelan. His voice sounded so amazing. I know I sounded like an obsessed stalker but I wasn't. Not really. She came to me and I said, "Claire."

After a couple more people she announced that we would be seated by the alphabetical order of our first name. She said a couple of names and said, "Caelan, Claire." My heart leapt. I was sitting next to him! I tried to keep my emotions inside but I couldn't help but flashing him a small smile. He looked extremely pleased and he wasn't hiding it so maybe I shouldn't have.

We all took our seats and he laid one hand on his armrest. I could see a purple ring on his left hand. His voice popped into my head.

"_Am I the only one here who likes the fact that we are sitting next to each other?" _he thought.

"_Of course not," _I replied effortlessly.

"_Are you sure?" _his tone was doubtful.

"'_Course I am sure," _ I insisted, upset that he didn't think I really thought so.

His tone was hesitant but yet he said, _"Good."_

The conversation ended when Madame Rose started talking to the rest of kids.

"Well, now that we are all settled, I would like to discuss this course. In Advanced, we are the choir for all the plays done by Drama/Theatre Club. Play season starts in spring, but we have to start practicing now. Like right now. Everybody open your laptops and go to .org." My electric-fast typing was matched by Caelan's. "Click on "course information"." The room was filled with rhythmic taps and clicks. A white page popped up and we were instructed to copy it onto a Word Doc. It was filled with things like songs we were going to sing, the choir for Drama, our expectations, stuff like that. Then Madame Rose proceeded to discuss the things and that's when Caelan started our conversation.

"_What are you?"_

"_Well,"_ I thought, _"I'm a girl, I'm thirteen, I'm an American citizen…. There are a lot of answers to that question, really."_

I heard him laugh before he continued, _"No, what Family are you in?"_

"_Oh. Why didn't you say it like that? I'm a Mallana."_

"_I see. When did you come?"_

"_Yesterday. 2:00, though the way you people finish my sentences, I am surprised you didn't already know that."_

He smiled at me. I smiled back. I wasn't completely sure of what was going on but it made me feel warm inside.

He was about to ask me something but Madame Rose interrupted him again.

"Seeing as we have about thirty minutes left, we have to go through the sheet together and discuss our responsibilities together. Someone read, please?"

She picked on a young girl with watery blue eyes and wispy blonde hair. A small droning voice filled the room and Caelan used this as an opportunity to pick up where we left off.

"_So, what are you doing Saturday night?"_ he asked causually.

"_I don't know, what do you have in mind?"_ I responded, my heart beat quickening by the second.

"_Well, I was thinking of going to the Auditorium for that new movie…. And I have an extra ticket…"_


End file.
